icebox, alright?
Tell me what I want to know
and you'll get rid of me forever.
I'm back, Doc!
I brought you a little something!
I didn't think
you'd want a cheeseburger . . .
I will! Bye!
Hi, Ellie!
Is that your boyfriend?
He's got a car and everything?
See you later!
Did you see him?
- No.
Why not?
- It would've been difficult. - Why?
Why? Because he's not there.
Johnny Favorite
walked out of the clinic 1 2 years ago,
in his best suit, with a new face
wrapped in bandages and a headache.
He left with a guy called Kelley
and a girl.
Do you know this Kelley?
It seems this Kelley paid off
some bent doctor called Fowler
to pinch hit for your guy.
He's covered up for him all these years.
Looks like our Johnny has
a perfect disappearing act.
- It seems so.
But you know what they say about slugs.
No, what do they say about slugs?
They always leave slime in their tracks.
You'll find him.
- No, I won't find him.
Because I left out one little detail.
This Dr. Fowler ended up dead
with his fucking brains blown out.
Did you kill him?
- No!
But the cops might think I did.
I took on a $1 25-a-day
missing persons job for you.
Now, I'm a murder suspect.
That's it! I'm out.
Such are the hazards of your profession.
If the fee bothers you, we'll adjust it.
You bother me!
The closest I ever come to death
is watching a hearse go by
on 2nd Avenue. That's the way I like it.
Are you afraid?
Yeah, I'm afraid.
I'll instruct my lawyer immediately
to send you a check for $5,000.
If you don't want the job,
I'll engage someone else.
5,000?
You want this Johnny pretty bad, eh?
I don't like messy accounts.
Some religions think the egg is the
symbol of the soul, did you know that?
No.
Would you like an egg?
No, thank you.
I got a thing about chickens.
It's after eleven, you're late.
- I'm sorry.
You get it?
- If I lose my job,
I'll come and be your secretary.
I couldn't pay you what the "Times"
pays. Besides, they won't miss it.
Hi, Johnny, where the fuck are you?
He really was a crooner, like you said.
I didn't realize he was so big.
He was in a band called the Spider
Simpson Orchestra. They're all dead.
Only Spider is here in town.
- Where? - I wrote it all down.
The dyke in the archive is suspicious.
My boss hasn't
researched the story in years.
You can get the files.
Spider is in an old people's home
on 1 38th Street.
Oh, I get to go to Harlem again.
There was a picture of Johnny
with Toots Sweet, a guitar player.
No one's heard of him for years!
Johnny was engaged to a rich broad,
Margaret Krusemark.
Her dad owns half of Louisiana.
Met him at a high school prom. Johnny
shit on her, and she went back to Daddy.
There's lots on their spells.
Spells, what do you mean, spells?
The eye of a newt,
toe of a frog and that kind of shit?
- Seems she was a bit of a crackpot.
Casting spells
at society do's and stuff.
Didn't go down too well with
the lvy League stiffos.
She was known as the Witch of Wellesly.
Did I do good?
Great! So what've I got:
A religious loonie as a client.
I gotta find Johnny "Golden Tonsils"
and we don't know where he is.
And he probably doesn't know who he is.
I got a geriatric bandleader
in a home in Harlem.
I got a guitar player
called Toots Sweet.
What else have I got?
A hard-on?
Are you okay?
January 3rd,
1 955. Client: Louis Cyphre.
Copy: Winesap & Mackintosh,
attorneys. As reported,
Johnny Favorite has not been
in the Sarah Dodd Clinic in
Poughkeepsie for the last 1 2 years.
He was taken away by a man
called Edward Kelley and a girl.
The girl is unidentified.
Kelley paid a Dr. Fowler $25,000
to falsify reports
stating
that Favorite was still in the hospital.
The doctor is now deceased.
Before Johnny's accident it seemed
like his career was going great,
until he started to dump on everyone.
I tracked down Spider Simpson,
Johnny's old bandleader. He resides
at the Lincoln Presbyterian Hospice
on 1 38th